This is How it Happens
by kirasometimes
Summary: "I don't want to be your experiment Chloe." - Chloe/Alek; episode tag: 1.07 "Dogs of War" ONESHOT -


**Title: **This is How it Happens

**Author: **Claddagh Ring

Disclaimer: I do not own _The Nine Lives of Chloe King._

**AN: **This takes place immediately following episode 1.07: Dogs of War.

**POV: **Chloe King

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><p>In every teenage romance novel I've read, there is always this part where one of the protagonists – usually the girl – gets surprised by a kiss. It's fairly obvious to the reader that it's going to happen, which is why I've always thought it was so silly that the narrator would say "he was kissing me. He was kissing me!" like it was completely inconceivable this could be happening. Of course he was kissing you; we've been waiting for it. But I know now, that's what it really is like. Even if everyone else in the world could see it coming, it didn't make any difference to me. The moment Alek pressed his lips against mine, every thought went out of my head but one: he was kissing me.<p>

It was a real kiss, the kind that dives into your soul and awakens something new inside of you, something you didn't know you had. It makes you catch your breath, make your heart quicken as you lose all sense of time and place and for a precious few seconds, I was lost in him with only his hand on my back and his lips on mine to keep me from falling away.

He looked poised to run; I could see the doubt in his eyes as he pulled away, searching my own for an answer to some unspoken question. I wasn't even sure exactly what the question was but I felt like I knew the answer. Or that I at least knew where to find it. If there was one at all, it would be in him; in his touch, in his lips. I just had to draw it out, to feel it on my tongue, and then I would understand. I would know.

And I kissed him, digging for that answer. The deeper I went, the more obvious it became. It was the soft insistence of his mouth against mine, the bittersweet honey and clove taste of his skin, the pressure of his palm on my waist. It was the new confidence in his lips as he nipped gently, the deep intake of air as I danced across his. It was the way I felt – and I know he felt it too – as if I could climb into his body and I would fill all the empty spaces of his presence. It was as moment so complete, that moment we live our lives for and it was with him.

But it was so very fragile and in the instant I drew away to take a quick breath, the world crashed in around us and all my thoughts and sensibilities caught up with me. Alek's arms stayed encircled at my waist and his forehead rested against mine. His eyes were still closed and I knew he was trying to hold onto that moment for just a bit longer. I begged, pleaded, prayed to get lost in him again, to fall back into that perfection. His eyelashes grazed against my cheek as his eyes slid open and I almost did. I was so close.

"Chloe?"

The crack in our glass house shattered as we both heard my mother call my name from inside the house. Simultaneously, we took the smallest of steps away from each other and I turned to look towards my front door. I knew I should say good night and go inside, I knew it was the right thing to do. But suddenly there were so many questions – questions I _did _know – that needed actual verbal answers and how incredibly awkward would it be if we just left things the way they were now? I couldn't let Alek leave, not while I was so twisted up in my thoughts. But my mom would never let him stay this late.

"_She would never have to know,"_ I thought.

"Meet me in my room," I said to Alek, who simply nodded and disappeared around the back of the house. There was a slight panic as I watched him walk away from him, even though I knew he he would be waiting. Seeing him leave was an awful new feeling, like a weight in my gut as I trudged my way up the stairs.

I reached the door and my mom was waiting for me, her face full of concern and worry. I could feel her anxiety, her fear. She was doubting herself for our conversation earlier; doubting if she could even sign away my father's life on just a simple piece of legal paper.

"I just needed to get some air," I whispered as I pulled her into a hug.

"Are you angry with me?" she asked.

"No mom, of course not," I answered, knowing that part of it was a lie. I was angry; angry with dad for leaving us like this, for making her have to make this decision that so clearly hurt her. And I felt guilty because I knew he was alive somewhere. And I felt sad because I felt her loneliness every day and couldn't do anything about it. I felt like a horrible daughter for bothering her with my sometimes existent love life while she pined away after a man who left us ten years ago.

"I just feel like you shut down on me in there," she sniffled. "And I had this horrible thought of you walking out on me when I heard you answer the door."

"I'm not going anywhere Mom," I insisted. "I just really need to think about this. I'm sorry."

"I understand," and I knew that she did.

I wouldn't think about it tonight, I knew that too, as Alek was already waiting for me. He was sitting on the edge of my bed, absently pulling at the cuffs of his jacket when I walked in. I quietly shut the door behind me and pressed a finger to my lips so that he would keep his voice down. He looked at me as if it were the most obvious thing in the world and I couldn't help the chuckle that escaped my throat.

"Is everything all right?" he asked and I must have looked confused because he added, "you mother was crying."

"She wants to declare my father dead," I blurted out without really meaning to. I hadn't even fully processed what that meant yet and I wasn't sure I wanted anyone else to know about it. Especially not Alek, especially not now when everything between us felt so vulnerable.

He wouldn't quite meet my eyes as he stood up and said, "This is a bad time. I'll go."

I reached out and grabbed his hand before he could escape out the window. He seemed to follow my lead as I sat down, his hand still in mine, fingers intertwining with his as if they had a mind of their own. "Stay," I whispered. "It's a weird time, true, but I don't want you to go."

Alek smiled softly and I reached out to trace the curve of his jaw with my hand. It was so new, getting to feel him this way. His skin was smooth, his angles that could look so hard turned soft under my touch. I could feel the bruises under his eye, the fissure where his cheekbone had been broken from the fight with the Jackals. This close to him, I could hear his heartbeat intensify with every second my fingers lingered on his face and I smiled to myself with a strange sense of pride.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" he whispered and I realized I had been starting at him as if I were trying to remind myself he was real; that whatever this was happening between us was real.

"I just..." I trailed off, unsure of what to say or even how to explain how this felt to me. The only thing I could do was be honest, I decided. "I just never expected this – you and me. Ever. I didn't even know it was an option."

I said the wrong thing, I quickly realized. His shoulders immediately tensed up and his eyes narrowed. He didn't leave the bed, but he angled his body away from mine and glared at me. "An _option_?" he growled, the sound deep in his chest. "Like a consolation?"

"No Alek!" I cried, placing my free hand over the ones we were still holding, relieved to find that his grip had lessened at all. "I just mean that I never imagined this with you. You took my by surprise."

"I think about this all the time," Alek sighed, shaking his head sadly. "I've known that this is what I want, but you've never..."

It was as if he couldn't even finish the sentence, like putting it into words would put it between them and I didn't want that, not at all. "I'm sorry," I said, nudging his face towards hers so she could look him in the eyes again. "But I like it."

He leaned his forehead against mine again but it didn't feel quite the same as it had when he'd done it outside. It was a tired movement, sad and unsure. Yet he spoke very clearly, with an assurance I'd only ever known to come from Alek and said: "I don't want to be your experiment Chloe."

Now I was the one who was shaking my head. "It's not like that. It's not," I repeated. "You're not that. You're different from everything I ever imagined myself wanting and that scares me a little, but I did wish for things to be different and nothing in my life is even remotely the same since that day so really, why should you, this, us, whatever be any different and for that matter-."

"Breathe!" Alek commanded, laughing at the sheepish grin that was slowly spreading across my face. "What exactly did you wish for?"

"On my birthday, that was my wish; for things to be different." I could feel the blush creeping into my cheeks as a looked down at our still entwined hands. Of course I would say something silly and embarrassing at a time like this. Damn me and my rambling mouth and damn Alek and that stupid smug grin he wore like an accessory.

"I dare say you got your wish, Chloe King," he said, and before I could protest, he was kissing me again and all other thoughts fled from my mind once more.

Alek was kissing me. I was kissing him back, and it was indeed everything I could have wished for.

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><p>I write, you read, you read, and I'll write more... but not for this.<p> 


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